Various types of devices exist for the welding of plastic tubes. Generally, these devices take the form of side by side spaced tube holders having pockets or grooves into which a pair of tubes would be mounted. The ends of the tubes are heated to create a molten condition of the plastic material and then the heated ends are pressed together to weld the tubes into a unitary structure.
In order to insure that a proper welding results it is necessary that the tubes be precisely located for the heating and welding operations. U.S. Pat. No. 4,753,697 discloses an arrangement in FIG. 3 wherein an aligning bar 24 is suspended from a rail 26 so that the aligning bar could be located in the space between the tube holders and so that the tubes could be moved forward into contact with the aligning bar. Thus, the aligning bar would form a means of locating the tubes with respect to each other. After this locating step is performed, the aligning bar is moved out of its position of contact with the tubes.
Parent application Ser. No. 965,875 discloses a total containment device for the connect/disconnect of plastic tubes. That device includes movable wall mounted to each clamp base. The wall serves as a locator for properly positioning a tube in its associated clamp base. Each base includes a clamp lid which has an inactivating member so that upon movement of the lid to its closing position the wall is automatically moved out of contact with its tube to expose the tubes for the later heating and welding steps. This arrangement has the advantage of automatically removing the movable wall away from the tubes upon the closing of the lid and does not rely upon other operations, such as would be required to move the aligning bar out of contact with the tubes as in U.S. Pat. No. 4,753,697. The present invention is directed to these aspects of parent application Ser. No. 965,875.